Over the course of the past few months, an anonymous Reddit user has shared his story in the subreddit “r/offmychest” about his brother that went missing when they were younger. Now decades later, the Reddit user has discovered that his brother was never missing. Rather, his homophobic parents told him that his brother was missing in order to keep the two apart for all those years.
The story starts with the Reddit user describing his relationship with his older brother. He was a young child, but remembers loving his brother and looking up to him. When his brother went missing he describes it as one of those “creepy unsolved mysteries”. The cops were called and his parents were interviewed for the locals news but his brother was never located. Over the years he remembers getting some mysterious packages in the mail with no cards, but still no sign of his brother.
Decades have passed and now the brother has decided to look further into his older brother’s disappearance. He contacted detectives that were part of his brother’s runaway case only to find out that his brother was no longer listed on any missing persons registry. They informed him that his brother had been removed at the parent’s request. When asking his parents for further information his father ignored him, but his mother told him that they found his brother years ago- and he was living with another man. This disgusted their parents so much that they cut off all contact with the older brother. He had tried to reconcile with them but they refused. They had even told him not to reach out to his younger brother, that he would want nothing to do with him either.
The Reddit user was livid when he found out. That was years and years of time with his brother that he would never get back. Luckily he was able to obtain a phone number for his brother from the police file that his brother left in case anyone had ever wanted to get in contact with him. After building up some courage, he called the number. After the two men confirmed that they were really speaking with each other, the older brother drove straight to an airport to get on a plane to reunite with the brother he hadn’t seen in decades. With no luggage, he arrived in his brother’s city where the two wept and hugged after finally seeing each other.
The older brother ended up staying for a few weeks, his husband and children flew out to stay as well and got to know the younger brother and his family. The Reddit user has plans to relocate his family to be closer to his brother and his family in the near future.